(By Marco R. Della Cava, edited by Josh Rabinowitz for SkateboardDirectory.com)

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. - Something is amiss in this concrete jungle of a skateboard park.

The usual suspects are here, boys with black T-shirts whose wobbly voices ping-pong between bird chirps and ape grunts. But a different breed of skater has just laid claim to this testosterone-soaked turf, distinguishable by the uncool need to be supernice. Just listen.

After one skater falls, he's greeted with "Are you OK?" When a runaway skateboard trips a regular, the cry is instant: "Sorry about that!"

This can only be Skateboard Mom, believed extinct after years of watching her equipment collect dust and her youth slip away.

Not so fast, punk.

From Manhattan to Manhattan Beach, women on the verge of middle age have decided that going back in time doesn't have to require a plastic surgeon's knife. They are women with jobs, husbands, families and plenty of concrete-defying body armor. Women like Barb Odanaka. "It's all about recapturing that flow, that buzz, that wind-in-your-hair feel, and also coming home bloody," says Odanaka, 41, author of the biographical children's book "Skateboard Mom" and a founder of the Web-based International Society of Skateboarding Moms. "With every new member, we hear the same thing: 'I can't believe other women are doing this.' "

More than ever. Since starting her organization a few months ago, Odanaka has heard such cries from as far away as Argentina *.

Some of those women may join a pilgrimage to Saturday's International Girls World Championships in San Francisco *, organized by All Girl Skate Jam * founder Patty Segovia, whose motto is "all ages, all abilities, all girls." And anyone looking to join next year's Jam might consider signing up for "Girls Learn to Ride," coast-to-coast clinics sponsored by beachwear giant Ocean Pacific.

"People in the scene always knew women ripped, but it has taken 10 years for them to climb back," says Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave magazine. "There remains an underlying sentiment that women don't belong, but many guys are being less negative, and many women are pushing hard against it."

Guys still dominate

It's still tough. The sport's leading zine, TransWorld SKATEboarding * (currently owned by a Time Warner Media subsidiary), has a readership that is "98 percent males with a median age of 15," editor Eric Sentianin says. The magazine occasionally spotlights female standouts, he says, "but we're dedicated to showcasing a certain level of talent, and with male and female skaters, well, it's the same difference as the NBA and WNBA."

Skateboarding exploded with a populist bang in the '70s, only to grow exclusionary and dangerous. If you didn't skate "vert" - think superstar Tony Hawk *'s risk-defying ramp-aided vertical acrobatics - you didn't skate.

But that soon gave way to street skating, which emphasizes dexterity and personal style. Suddenly, skateparks mushroomed, from more than 200 in the United States * in 1996 * to about 1,000 today, according to the Skatepark Association of the USA *. Though true die-hards always will risk arrest for risky rides, women of all ages find that orderly parks are more nurturing.

"People always think of skateboarding as this tough scene, but I'm always out there with kids and their parents, just one big happy skate family," says Lyn-Z Adams *, 14, a phenom from Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif., who skates for the all-girl Roxy squad.

"Growing up, I wanted to be like my brother," she says. "But today, maybe other young girls will want to be like me."

"Be like Lyn-Z." It doesn't have that Michael Jordan ring yet, but that isn't stopping a marketplace keenly aware of the $1.4 billion in retail sales generated annually by about 14 million U.S. skaters.

""The merchandising starts with tyke-aimed toys such as Skateboard Shannon (grab the remote control and watch her wheelie *) and extends to women-only clothing and skateboard lines such as Curly Grrlz and Rookie (though other than girlie graphics, girls boards resemble male models).

A 'renaissance' of fun ConCrete Divas, a new Boise-based company, started making hats, T-shirts and sweatshirts for the fairer skateboarder in February and already has seen local demand outstrip supply.

"I was teaching skateboarding and started to notice how many girls were out there, though so many of them didn't have the right clothes," company founder Josh Schmitz says. Girls either wore their "brothers' ragged, baggy clothes or really tight stuff, which obviously is no good if you wipe on concrete."

A similar sense of entrepreneurship seized day care teacher Faye Richards, 23, of Albuquerque, who recently started "Second Wind," a quarterly magazine for area skate fans, many of whom are mothers like her. "Five years ago, I knew no one who skated," she says. "Now, it's new women every time you go out. This is about to blow up."

One scene veteran agrees that things are looking very much as they did a few decades ago, when the sport had more to do with fun than fury. "There's definitely a renaissance going on, and it's not just with girls coming back," says Stacy Peralta *, director of the celebrated 2001 * documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys *." "The older folks, now settled, are looking to recapture that moment in their life when they felt truly liberated and free. For many, that was skateboarding."

Here at this pristine skatepark, an oasis of unblemished concrete just south of Los Angeles *, Odanaka and a half-dozen other skateboarding moms are grinding away as a searing guitar solo blasts over the loudspeakers.

"For kids, I prefer skateboarding to Ritalin," says Sunny Elizabeth, 37, a single mom sharing quality time with her brood: Vienna, 17, Carly, 15, and Caity, 9. "It's a good way for them to channel their estrogen. I want them to beat the boys at their own game."

For Elizabeth, a family that skates together, stays together: "I don't give my girls cell phones. I come here with them and skate. It keeps me young, and I know all about the newest music."

Odanaka skates by, effortlessly executing a series of 180-degree turns off the edges of a vertical wall. As Pied Pipers go, she has clout: In skateboarding's heyday, she was a teenage member of Southern California *'s amateur Hobie team. "I stopped for 25 years, but I never stopped loving it. I'd walk into skateboard shops to gawk like most women do in jewelry stores. It's a sickness," says the woman with 19 skateboards.

After a stressful time following the birth of her son, a therapist encouraged her to seek out something from her youth that simply made her smile. Done.

"I was never the sorority type," she says, adjusting her helmet and looking at her friends. "But this is definitely my kind of sorority."

Character building comes up often in conversation with this group. Fun with a message.

"This sports makes you both agile and mentally strong," says Rose Bernfeld, 25, who runs a sunglasses warehouse and started skating a few years back. "There's always a lot of ladies out here when I'm skating, and I think it's cool," Taylor St. Romain says. He lets out a small, 12-year-old sigh. "I wish my mom skateboarded."

This article was originally entitled "Women get on board at the skatepark" and was found at http://www.azcentral.com/ent/pop/articles/0702skatermom02.html

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